What are you looking at?
Mar. 6th, 2008 02:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
penfield"The writer should never be ashamed of staring. There is nothing that does not require his attention."
- (Mary) Flannery O'Connor (Southern-fried American writer)
One of the few great joys of public transportation is the sport of people-watching. In between mp3s or chapters of that book you're reading, you can watch ordinary folks doing ordinary things like anxiously negotiating a last-minute makeup application amid train turbulence, exerting dramatic body english as a means of conquering Tetris Level Nine on their Blackberries, and wearing outfits that fall somewhere on the Risque Meter between "downtown chic" and "high-class prostitute."
Of course, probably only about five percent of people on the D.C. Metro are really worth looking at, and 99 percent of those people will give you an obscene gesture to look at if you stare too long. Which is why I prefer "people-watching-people-watching" to mere "people-watching."
Because people-watching is so instinctive and common, you can always find someone on the train who is watching someone else. They may not even realize they're doing it. And the best part is, they are usually so focused on someone else that they never realize you're looking at them. And if they do, it's usually they who are sheepish and embarassed.
This morning offered some great people-watching-people-watching. When I boarded the train I stood next to an attractive young woman whose attire strode confidently all the way to the edge of professionalism: she was wearing a black skirt that inched just above her knee as she sat in her seat near the door, her slender legs poured into a pair of mid-calf leather boots with short stiletto heels and those ridiculously pointy toes.
I think it was real leather.
But more interesting than that was the reaction of each man that subsequently boarded the train. Each one -- old guys, young guys, married guys, guys boarding with their girlfriends -- took a moment as the entered the car to look her legs up and down. Some of them were subtle, expertly scanning from floor-to-knee in a split second. Other guys lingered just a bit too long and accidentally bumped into the person in front of them. There was nothing acutely sexual about these glances; it was merely an illicit physiological urge.(Ladies: I am sorry to report that men are just as canine as you think we are. Perhaps worse.)
Only one guy seemed unfazed by the display, a slim-fit young man with close-cropped hair, wearing a pashmina scarf and tinted glasses. I made my own assumption about this person: he was obviously a gentleman.
That did not stop him from looking at another woman, sitting by herself in the corner of the train car. She was an older woman, at least on the cusp of her 60s, the kind of woman for whom footwear need only be comfortable and easy to put on. She was staring out the window as we passed through Arlington Cemetery) and silently weeping. It was a weird moment, as he and I noticed the woman at the same time. I looked in vain through my pockets and my satchel for a tissue and shared a glance with Slim-Fit as if to say, "That sucks that the woman is crying. But what are we supposed to do?" I suddenly felt a swollen rush of humanity, a need to comfort her, but I could not cross the well-defined personal borders established by Metro etiquette, the overriding principle of which is "stay away from me." So I the next most polite thing I could do was stop looking at her and watch Slim-Fit look at her instead.
Just over his shoulder, and sitting directly across from Bootsy, was an old man, if not aged in years then certainly weathered by the business of life. He appeared as if he had just been unpacked from a suitcase. He wore a frown and dark sunglasses. At first I thought he was using the sunglasses to shield the fact that he was staring up the Bootsy's skirt, but he didn't even flinch when she got off the train. Then I reasoned that he might be blind, leading to a brief internal monologue about the difficulty and entertainment value of "people-hearing-watching" (high, and minimal). Finally, as I was leaving the train myself, I saw in the light that he wasn't blind -- he was sleeping, which means that in the course of trying to people-watching-people-watch I ended up person-watching anyway.
I feel bad for him, though. He missed some interesting stuff -- like maybe watching me people-watch.
- (Mary) Flannery O'Connor (Southern-fried American writer)
One of the few great joys of public transportation is the sport of people-watching. In between mp3s or chapters of that book you're reading, you can watch ordinary folks doing ordinary things like anxiously negotiating a last-minute makeup application amid train turbulence, exerting dramatic body english as a means of conquering Tetris Level Nine on their Blackberries, and wearing outfits that fall somewhere on the Risque Meter between "downtown chic" and "high-class prostitute."
Of course, probably only about five percent of people on the D.C. Metro are really worth looking at, and 99 percent of those people will give you an obscene gesture to look at if you stare too long. Which is why I prefer "people-watching-people-watching" to mere "people-watching."
Because people-watching is so instinctive and common, you can always find someone on the train who is watching someone else. They may not even realize they're doing it. And the best part is, they are usually so focused on someone else that they never realize you're looking at them. And if they do, it's usually they who are sheepish and embarassed.
This morning offered some great people-watching-people-watching. When I boarded the train I stood next to an attractive young woman whose attire strode confidently all the way to the edge of professionalism: she was wearing a black skirt that inched just above her knee as she sat in her seat near the door, her slender legs poured into a pair of mid-calf leather boots with short stiletto heels and those ridiculously pointy toes.
I think it was real leather.
But more interesting than that was the reaction of each man that subsequently boarded the train. Each one -- old guys, young guys, married guys, guys boarding with their girlfriends -- took a moment as the entered the car to look her legs up and down. Some of them were subtle, expertly scanning from floor-to-knee in a split second. Other guys lingered just a bit too long and accidentally bumped into the person in front of them. There was nothing acutely sexual about these glances; it was merely an illicit physiological urge.(Ladies: I am sorry to report that men are just as canine as you think we are. Perhaps worse.)
Only one guy seemed unfazed by the display, a slim-fit young man with close-cropped hair, wearing a pashmina scarf and tinted glasses. I made my own assumption about this person: he was obviously a gentleman.
That did not stop him from looking at another woman, sitting by herself in the corner of the train car. She was an older woman, at least on the cusp of her 60s, the kind of woman for whom footwear need only be comfortable and easy to put on. She was staring out the window as we passed through Arlington Cemetery) and silently weeping. It was a weird moment, as he and I noticed the woman at the same time. I looked in vain through my pockets and my satchel for a tissue and shared a glance with Slim-Fit as if to say, "That sucks that the woman is crying. But what are we supposed to do?" I suddenly felt a swollen rush of humanity, a need to comfort her, but I could not cross the well-defined personal borders established by Metro etiquette, the overriding principle of which is "stay away from me." So I the next most polite thing I could do was stop looking at her and watch Slim-Fit look at her instead.
Just over his shoulder, and sitting directly across from Bootsy, was an old man, if not aged in years then certainly weathered by the business of life. He appeared as if he had just been unpacked from a suitcase. He wore a frown and dark sunglasses. At first I thought he was using the sunglasses to shield the fact that he was staring up the Bootsy's skirt, but he didn't even flinch when she got off the train. Then I reasoned that he might be blind, leading to a brief internal monologue about the difficulty and entertainment value of "people-hearing-watching" (high, and minimal). Finally, as I was leaving the train myself, I saw in the light that he wasn't blind -- he was sleeping, which means that in the course of trying to people-watching-people-watch I ended up person-watching anyway.
I feel bad for him, though. He missed some interesting stuff -- like maybe watching me people-watch.
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no subject
Date: 2008-03-07 03:37 pm (UTC)And I love this so much:
Only one guy seemed unfazed by the display, a slim-fit young man with close-cropped hair, wearing a pashmina scarf and tinted glasses. I made my own assumption about this person: he was obviously a gentleman.
no subject
Date: 2008-03-07 03:55 pm (UTC)I have never been particularly skilled at that specific kind of radar, but I am proud (proud? or something.) to say that I was able to determine his gentleman status even before he started reading his Gore Vidal book.
no subject
Date: 2008-03-07 03:59 pm (UTC)Mom(my) who else? hahahahahaha
no subject
Date: 2008-03-07 04:07 pm (UTC)You're with me, leather!
Date: 2008-03-07 05:43 pm (UTC)Re: You're with me, leather!
Date: 2008-03-07 05:59 pm (UTC)Re: You're with me, leather!
Date: 2008-03-07 06:18 pm (UTC)Canines
Date: 2008-03-07 07:00 pm (UTC)(1) "I wonder if I do that?" and
(2) "They must be REALLY hot."
So I quickened my pace to get in front of them and get a look-see. (I have no idea how subtle I was in doing this, but I made efforts to look like I wasn't looking.) Yes, they were perfectly attractive, but nothing remarkable. I agree with Mr. Pants: Most men are mostly canines.